


Tiger, Tiger

by storyplease



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyplease/pseuds/storyplease
Summary: Her hair burns bright in the forest,Her eyes glow with knowledge unknown,Her face is an oft-changing portrait,And her heart, oh, her heart is a stone.





	

She lives in a small, isolated dwelling in the forest.  I’ve been watching her, cataloguing her movements for months, biding my time.  She acts like she isn’t afraid of anything, but I see the way the whites of her eyes widen when the sun sets and the shadows grow long.

It makes me feel funny in the pit of my stomach.  I like it.  It will be soon.

Not many others come by, not since she appeared several months ago.  I don’t have much interest in her life before she came to stay here. But I know that she’ll be perfect when I’ve made her my own.

Only…

One morning, she doesn’t appear for her morning foraging routine.

Her normal daily movements are empty and the forest seems stark and strange without her presence.  Even her dwelling appears abandoned, though there is no noticeable difference to it in the pale afternoon light.

I head deeper into the forest than I normally stray, following the deep caterpillar tracks that weren’t here last night and are winding themselves through the brush as I stalk their makers on foot.

At last, I reach an artificially created clearing, the trees and brush haphazardly cut asunder to create a makeshift camp.  There, in the middle of it all, are three men wearing camouflage vests and berets, loading her into a military vehicle!  She appears so terrified, hitting against the bars violently and protesting their savage treatment, but my heart is beating with the fear that I shall no longer have the honor and pleasure of seeing the light go out of her eyes myself.  The men are laughing and patting each other on the back.  They are no-doubt nefarious men from the government, or perhaps some paramilitary organization, drunk on power and short on morals. But not I!

For while I may be a murderer, I at least allow my victims a sporting chance!  And cages!  How barbaric!

The men are heating something black that oozes like tar on their cooking stove.  It smells like burnt asphalt, and one of the men wrinkles his nose in distaste.  Their backs are to me, so I sneak quietly around the side of the truck and peer inside the flap.

She’s sitting in the dark, her eyes trained on my face as it appears in the gloom.  She knows to be quiet and regards me with suspicious eyes.  I see that the men are aiming to be extra cruel, as the keys to her cage lay just out of reach of the cage itself, hung on a hook on the wall of the truck.  Nimbly, I hop inside, making sure to check and make sure that the men are still occupied with their breakfast sludge.  I take the key ring down and try a couple before I find the proper one, and the lock clicks open, her eyes widening as she realizes what I am about to do.  But I’m not stupid.  I take off the lock and unhook the latch, leaving the door still closed.

“Shhh,” I say, flashing a wicked grin, “I’m giving you your freedom and a ten minute head start.  But I’ll be coming for you afterwards, and I aim to kill.”

She doesn’t say anything.  Perhaps the shock of her captivity is still affecting her, but her body seems to tense and I know she understands me.

I slip from the van, as quietly as I can, and I hear a tiny squeak of the door opening in the cage. She sneaks out silently, and I feel a surge of pride, starting the timer on my watch as I leave the area, snickering to myself at how easily those men had been duped.

I am back at her home again, waiting for her.  It’s been fifteen minutes, so surely she hasn’t gone off somewhere else! All this planning and waiting and for what?  I grit my teeth and pull out my gun, approaching the structure slowly.  It is only when I am near the entranceway that I hear a small sound behind me and realize that I am too late.

Her claws are upon me, my flesh rends in a burst of heat and wetness, and there is a tongue lapping, then teeth crunching to the bone.  My gun falls uselessly at my side, and I see small paws batting at my watch as it glints in the dying sun’s light.  

‘Ah, how could I have missed it?’ I think to myself as I’m rolled onto my back, the massive head of the tigress burrowing into the soft flesh of my belly, the pain even now fading as my consciousness fades as well, ‘She’ll need plenty of food to raise her cubs.”

My last regret is that I failed to add her to my collection.


End file.
